The Saudi Press Agency reported that the Kingdom has submitted to the Yemeni government and the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council a mechanism to accelerate work in implementing the Riyadh agreement, including the continuation of the ceasefire between the legitimate government and the Council.
The agency said in a statement that the Saudi mechanism includes assigning the Prime Minister of Yemen to take over the formation of a government of political efficiencies within thirty days.
It also includes issuing the decision to form members of the government equally divided between the north and the south, including the ministers nominated by the transitional council.
The mechanism includes the announcement of the transitional council to abandon self-administration, implement the Riyadh agreement, appoint a governor and security director for Aden Governorate, and include the exit of military forces from Aden outside the governorate, the separation of forces of the two parties in Abyan and their return to their previous positions.
The agency quoted an official source as saying that the Yemeni government and the Transitional Council expressed their approval of the mechanism provided by Riyadh, and agreed to start work on it.
New government
Meanwhile, the Yemeni Prime Minister's account reported on Twitter that Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi had assigned Prime Minister Moein Abdul Malik to form the new government.
The Yemeni president also issued a decision appointing Ahmed Hamed Lamless - a leader in the Emirati-backed transitional council - as governor of Aden.
The official Yemeni news agency, Saba, reported that President Hadi appointed to Meles to succeed Ahmed Salem Rabee, who had been in the position since November 8, 2018.
Brigadier General Muhammad Ahmad al-Hamidi was appointed director general of Aden Governorate Police, and he was promoted to the rank of major general.
Transitional gives up
In turn, the transitional council announced, at dawn on Wednesday, that it would give up the rule of self-management of the southern governorates, nearly 3 months after it announced its self-rule.
"The transitional council announces the abandonment of the declaration of self-administration, so that the Arab coalition can implement the Riyadh agreement," said council spokesman Nizar Haitham on his personal page on Twitter.
He pointed out that the decision comes within the framework of "the council's keenness to make the Riyadh agreement succeed, achieve security and stability, and unite joint efforts to confront the Houthi militias and terrorist groups."
He stated that the council had achieved the goals that the declaration of self-management was based on, which is implementing the Riyadh agreement, forming a new government divided between north and south, appointing a governor and security director for the capital Aden, and moving the military forces to combat fronts to be replaced by the security forces.
Transitional parallel government
Commenting on the announcement of the Saudi Mechanism, Yemeni journalist and human rights activist Mohammed Al-Ahmadi told Al-Jazeera that this announcement "put the Yemeni legitimate government on an equal footing with an illegal entity working for the UAE, which is the Southern Transitional Council."
Al-Ahmadi added that the content of the mechanism expresses "the normalization of the Transitional Council coup in southern Yemen," as he put it.
The agreement brokered by Saudi Arabia last November was called the Riyadh agreement, and the negotiation came after the southern transitional council took control of Aden, the de facto headquarters of the internationally recognized Yemeni government.
The Riyadh agreement, which aims to reorganize all the military factions and form an equal government between north and south, has not been implemented.